​Did you ever notice how smoothly the bubble of privileged and entitled obliviousness becomes the bubble of ironic and cool obliviousness? From “things looks bad, but ultimately we’ll be fine” to “we’re doomed but we’re cool because we can laugh about it?” Pretty much the same thing.

Western Stars is Bruce Springsteen’s best solo album, and one of his best albums ever. It has some masterful songs: Stones, Wild Horses, Moonlight Motel; pieces with great pop hooks like There Goes My Miracle and Tucson Train. It’s the stealth Sgt. Pepper. But that’s not the main thing. The main thing, as Jeff Spevak as noted, http://www.jeffspevak.com/a-world-of-trouble-saved-by-springsteen/ is it’s what we need now. Just as we needed The Rising in 02.

It’s not about anger or acceptance. It’s about going to a place where the heart lives, where contentious voices shut up. That place where we don’t look at a person and say “Is he or isn’t he?” but “I know that feeling.”

What seems unlikely, implausible or impossible in the sequence of a story may be regarded that way only because of the conventions of the story, or because of the boundaries the story itself has created. For in life, anything is possible. And therefore, plausible.

Charles SeaBe Banks and I will be doing a reading at Books, ETC. of Macedon, New York on Sunday, July 14 at 4 p.m. Poems will be chosen by the audience according to topic, which include time, self, travel, love, death, (or change), fun and social life.. Books, ETC. 78 Main Street.